Sarah and James Plus Two : October 2014

My baby girl turned one! It really does seem like only yesterday we brought this tiny little girl home. She has brought so much fun and chaos to our lives. She is so sweet, smart, funny, adorable but at the same time she also demanding, loud, fierce, tough, and feisty. She loves me, her daddy and her brother to pieces! She squeals, smiles, laughs and runs toward us any time she sees us. And of course, we love her right back. This girl has us all wrapped right around her little finger and I think she knows it ;) She is so friendly and makes people fall in love with her wherever we go. She will smile, wave and say hi to perfect strangers and before we know it, they are just as in love as we are. This girl has charm, that's for sure :) Lucky for us, she is sweet most of the time and only feisty when she is tired or hungry. She is the opposite of her older brother in so many ways. She is way more coordinated and walked at 10 months where Henry didn't walk until 13 months. She eats just about anything we give her where Henry ate (and still eats) only a few things. She loves her pacifier where Henry sucked (ugh and still sucks) his thumb. She drinks water from a sippy cup just fine but completely refuses to drink milk from a cup, choosing instead to drink milk from her bottle. Henry drank from a sippy cup with no problem. Spencer loves to get messy, Henry hated to have anything on his hands. Spencer is a lucky girl to have Henry as a big brother. He loves her and helps take care of and protect her. Also lucky for us, he is very patient with her. Spencer is a bit rough and tends to pull Henry's hair (and other things!) and he usually is pretty gracious about it. Henry did have a hard time with Spencer's birthday. It was hard for him to sit back and let Spencer have ALL the presents, balloons, attention, etc… My mom pointed out that on Christmas, he got presents too so he's never really had to deal with this before. After some talking, he did let his sister have her time in the spotlight. We opted to have just a small family gathering for Spencer's first birthday. After all, even with just our family there, there were about a dozen people there!

Before the mess ;)

My baby girl is one!

She loved the balloons… not quite as much as Henry did though.

See? ;)

Presents for my baby.

The birthday girl all dressed up.

Little doll didn't want to stand still long enough to have her pics taken.

Look at that fluffy hair!!

Me and my baby.

Smooch!

Check out that grin :)

There's that super cheesy smile that I love!

Daddy and baby girl.

Nana and papa with the birthday girl.

Auntie Zeezee and Auntie Em with baby.

Uncle Matt, Starla and Sean with the birthday girl and the awesome big brother.

Time to open presents! I love her crown! :)

Check out the bump on her head. Little tank gets a couple injuries like that every day ;)

That's my girl! Biting the wrapping paper!

We got Spencer her first baby doll.

She loved it!

Either that or she wanted to eat it.

I got her a Minnie purse.

So proud of Henry sitting and watching.

Got her a new ball popper.

to compensate for the girlie-ness of the purse and the baby doll, I got her a doctor kit.

Spencer just wanted to chew on the cute dress Auntie Em got her.

Then it was time for cake. I asked my mom to make Spencer an applesauce spice cake since it was tradition that all of us had our our first birthday and my mom had also made one for Henry's first birthday. Thanks mom!!! I wanted to make Spencer a little smash cake too so that she could make herself a giant mess and the rest of us could eat the yummy cake my mom made. I didn't know what type of cake to make but I had an idea. See, Spencer LOVES blueberries. She would eat them all day long if I let her. So I found a recipe for blueberry upside down cake and knew it would be perfect for her.

The blueberry upside down smash cake.

I was afraid she'd grab the candle.

She was enthralled.

And really wanted to make a mess.

And in she goes!

Yum!

There's my messy girl :)

Duck face!

The aftermath.

The bib is the same one Henry wore on his first birthday : )

I think she ate some but mostly just made a mess.

Then she ate some more! See, I told you that she's eat blueberries all day!!

I also got baby a few new board books. She LOVES to read. This is part of her demanding nature. She will bring me a book and if I don't read it right away, she will cry until I do!

Here's James reading the kids some new books the morning after baby's birthday party.

We had Spencer's birthday party on Saturday, her actual birthday was on Tuesday. So of course we had to sing happy birthday again and have more cake and ice cream!